


BloodCam: Bad Day

by hollo



Series: Blood Trails - BloodCam AU [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Depression, Depressive Episode, Emotional, Established Relationship, Helplessness, M/M, Mental Illness, Trying to help, bloodcam verse, kinda painful, lance pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 00:47:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14032476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollo/pseuds/hollo
Summary: Part of the BloodCam AU Series | Lance POV-Pidge had told him that Keith had bad days - no, Bad Days, capitalized and emphasized - but he hadn't been quite prepared. He hadn't known quite what to expect.





	BloodCam: Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline Wise: This fic occurs after Hematoma, set about two and a half years after BloodCam (the first), with references to their first winter together which occurred roughly a year after the end of BloodCam.  
> I was slightly hesitant to post this as Hematoma is still very much a WIP but - YOLO. Or whatever the kids are saying these days.
> 
> Please mind the tags and also mind the following:
> 
> This is written in Lance's POV, and so the situation is read through his emotions and experiences.  
> I'm not sure how hard this fic will affect you but if you are a particularly emphatic and/or sympathetic person maybe tread with caution as I do try to evoke emotions in the reader.
> 
> Please note - we'll get Keith's POV in Hematoma and eventually the threequel Aftercare which is why I focused on Lance for this oneshot.
> 
>  
> 
> Also: a note that if you are considering meeting with a therapist or psychiatrist I highly suggest it and I urge you to look for assistance however you can. While I touch on it a little here, it will be touched on more in Hematoma, and while this oneshot is heavy it's only one part of a far longer storyline and things do get better for these two, and they can absolutely get better for you. There's no need to go it alone, you can find the support you need I promise. 
> 
> Love you all, thanks for taking the time to read this.
> 
> (p.s. because I forgot this last night but you can check on BloodCam updates at my blog: [JustBloodCamThings]()

Keith’s keys are on the floor of the apartment when Lance gets home from work. He only sees them when he flips the living room lights on, and the sight of them sitting askew on the hardwood combined with the shocking darkness of the rest of the apartment stokes the sick feeling that had been coalescing, slowly but surely, all through his shift since Keith stopped responding to his text messages sometime that afternoon.

Slowly he crouches down to lift them from the floor, and it’s almost painful, because it’s only the house keys on a single ring, front and back door, red sharpie scribbled on one, blue on the other. It hurts, even when Feebs meows from the corner where she’d been taking a nap on the armchair, hurts as he rises to walk over to her, hurts because it’s taking everything inside of him not to go racing through the apartment, throwing open every single door in a search he knew would come up empty. 

Hurts, because this is only the second time this has happened, and he’d hoped it wouldn’t have, ever again, but there he is, trying to convince himself that the rational and logical thing to do was not to bombard Keith’s phone with texts or run back outside to his car to search the streets but to stay put where be was.

Part of him is petting Feebs, but part of him is trying to figure out where this episode had come from. Keith had certainly been aloof more often than not the past few days, maybe a little abrasive, defensive, quick to rile up, but not much more than he usually was during the winter. Not really,  _ not really _ , but still Lance finds himself picking apart their interactions the days before, the night before, that morning before Keith had left for work - trying to find the  _ moment _ that everything began to tip too far. He can’t help but feel as if he should’ve seen this coming.

 

Pidge had told him that Keith had bad days - no, Bad Days, capitalized and emphasized - a little while after they’d started going out.

Once it became apparent they were more than just a thing, once they'd really started talking about moving in together, she'd asked Lance out for some coffee, sat there for almost half an hour with her brows furrowed, uncertainty clouding her face, while Lance tried and failed to make small talk, the worry that something was horribly wrong tightening in his chest until she'd finally sighed and turned to him. Eyes meeting his, she started off hesitantly, as if she wasn't sure if she was crossing a boundary she shouldn't be crossing, “I just want you to know, I'm not trying to scare you off, I just-”

And he was grateful she had, even if he didn't really realize what she'd been trying to explain to him then, even if it wasn't until the dead of their first winter together had set in and Keith's moods had turned with the weather, and stress and overstimulation and things that Lance couldn't control no matter how much he wanted to sent Keith crashing harder than Lance could've imagined. 

He hadn’t been quite prepared for the days-long spiral, the way Keith’s moods shifted from needy to abrasive in what felt like seconds and then back again, the shift impossible to pinpoint, impossible to predict, and Keith only growing more and more frustrated in the midst of it, a haunted look coming to his eyes. And Lance could never have been prepared to be so helpless in the face of it all, when the tension finally snapped and took Keith with it. 

He didn’t remember details, they were faded and fuzzy from the stress and the emotions, but he remembered  _ enough  _ \- the trepidation that pounded his heart so hard in his chest as Keith stalked the apartment like a shadow, slinking from room to room steps ahead of Lance, shying away when Lance tried to reach out to him, unable to look him in the face. Resolution had hardened Keith’s face, set his jaw, even as tears trailed down his cheeks, and it was that more than anything that had Lance scrambling for some sort of answer, some sort of action, anything to stop each moment from unfolding because by the second time Keith had tugged his jacket on Lance knew he was going to leave. Even when Keith tore the jacket off again, tossed it aside Lance knew it, could feel it deep in his chest where it hurt the most. Keith was going to leave, out the door, he was going to walk right out and leave and Lance had to find a way to stop him somehow, he had to find a way because there was too much pain and anger and frustration and he was terrified that if Keith walked out he would never come back.

So Lance tried, despite Pidge’s suggestion that if  _ it _ ever happened he just  _ let it happen _ \- unable to believe her promises that Keith  _ always came back  _ \- he tried to keep Keith from leaving and the result was as disastrous as Pidge had warned him it could be.

Not physically, nothing like that - despite how often they wrestled and tackled each other when they were happy and getting along, despite how explosive Lance knew Keith could get with his emotions, Keith shied from physical contact then, in that state, huddled back like a beaten dog when Lance tried to reach out to him, snapped back with words instead - words that hit harder than any punches could, words Lance still tried to forget, words he’d used against Keith himself in moments of anger or irritation or exasperation, words that Keith spat back in his face with tears in his eyes, as an explanation as much as a weapon, as a reason as much as a defense. 

And then Keith had left, for the first and only time that night touching Lance when he shoved bodily past him to reach the door, and Lance couldn’t stop him. He couldn’t stop him.

 

And now Lance can’t decide what was worse - being there for the unraveling, every second stretching out in dreadful slow motion, unable to halt the inevitable because nothing he could say or do could stop it or help, every action only seeming to make things worse; or coming home to this, the stark and weighted silence, the darkness, having known for hours something was coming and being all the more helpless to prevent it because he wasn’t there, couldn’t have been there.

He leaves Feebs on the armchair and walks into the darkened kitchen. He thinks he should do something but he can barely focus enough to trace the light from the living room across the kitchen floor. He doesn’t flip the kitchen switch, stands in the half-light instead, and he notices it as his gaze flickers around the room -

There's a piece of paper on the kitchen table next to a marker, half crumpled, and as he walks over to the table he can see it is covered in shaky red writing he barely recognizes as Keith's. He picks it up, holds it softly, tenderly, as if holding it could help Keith somehow, as if he’d be able to feel the weight of Lance’s love through this flimsy scrap covered in his deepest emotions and fears, but he doesn't read it. It's just words, just words and frustrations and Lance doesn't need to read it to understand because the shakiness of the letters, the near-illegible slant they have, the way the paper crinkles in his fingers, having been crumpled and straightened and crumpled again who knows how many times, says it all. 

He's scared, his heart fluttering in his chest like a hummingbird’s wings, like it’s trying to restart itself, so he takes the paper with him back to the living room where the light still shines and calls Pidge.

“What's wrong,” She says, a statement rather than a question, as if she already knows why he's calling, and Lance takes a shaky breath.

“I don't know where Keith is.” Admitting it feels like choking on glass. He sits on the couch and Feebs is on his lap in an instant, soft paws weighing on his thighs, her tail curling along her side as she curls up, turns bright eyes towards him.

He thinks he catches Pidge swearing under her breath but he’s shaking too hard to hear properly. 

“What happened?” Pidge asks, too calm in the way that he knows she gets when she’s trying to control herself. “Did he leave right now?”

“I came home and he wasn’t here,” Lance replies, paper crumpling in his hand. “He didn’t… he didn’t try calling you or anything? Did he?”

His voice sounds too painfully hopeful, even to his own ears. 

“No, I’m sorry, I texted him earlier about meeting up on Saturday but he… he didn’t respond, I figured he was just taking his time,” Pidge’s voice is quiet, calm but worry is cracking the edges. “I know he was a little skittish lately, or whatever, but I didn’t… I mean, he hasn’t had a bad day like this in a while, right?”

“Not like this,” Lance says, and it’s not a lie because he doesn’t really count the days Keith is just-functioning-enough as bad days, not like  _ this _ , doesn’t count the days he needs to just shut down in bed under his blankets and Lance has to remind him to eat and take his meds as  _ bad _ . They’re just rough days, he’s told himself, they’re manageable. They’re going to their therapists, Keith’s taking his meds, they’re managing this - they’re  _ managing _ .

“He - he said the doc gave him a new prescription, right?” Pidge went on, “Maybe it threw him off, maybe the switch is throwing him off?”

“Maybe,” Lance repeats. He wonders if that’s it - he knows changing medications can cause problems, they’d read about the chances of mood swings and worsening depression together, Keith and him, scouring the internet for hours to weigh the pros and cons.

“I have to try it,” Keith had said, curled up against Lance, discomfort heavy in his voice, plain on his face. The nausea that hit him after each dose was too much for him to take, and Lance couldn’t stand watching him be miserable for hours day after day. On top of the random bouts of insomnia and even worse fatigue, it was just too much.

It’s only been a couple of weeks into the change. Lance wonders if they’d reached the zero point between the two medications, if one had tapered off before the other began, if that was what had sent Keith tumbling off balance.

“Are you sure…” Pidge asks, and Lance realizes they’d sat in silence for a while. “Are you sure he didn’t just...just go out to the store or something and forget to tell you?”

Lance looks down at the crumpled paper in his hand. “I’m sure.”

Another silence. He hears Pidge breathing, slow and deep, and wonders how she managed this when it was just her and Keith, Keith and her. Wonders if it was as bad as it is now, wonders if Keith was more angry than sad then, more fiery and less beaten, wonders…

“Do...do you think I should try calling him?” 

“He won’t answer,” Pidge replies, her calm fracturing piece by piece, breaking away with each word, with each breath. “He won’t answer, he never answers when he’s like this.”

“Maybe...maybe if he sees it’s me, maybe he’ll pick up,” Lance says softly. Feebs is purring in his lap, kneading at his stomach, and it’s almost helping. Almost. 

“And maybe he won’t, or maybe he’ll pick up just to blow up at you, or maybe-” Pidge cuts herself off, breaths deep before speaking again, low and controlled once more, “I was, I was hoping, but it doesn’t...It doesn’t matter. He’ll come back, Lance. He always comes back.”

“I know,” Lance says, and it’s hard to get it out because he’s still shaking and now the shaking is getting into his throat and his lungs and tightening him up. “I’m gonna try calling him anyways.”

“Okay.” Pidge says, quiet, resigned, but he knows she’s going to worry. “Call me, if you need to. Whenever, whatever time it is, you can call me.”

“Okay.” He says, then adds, “Good night” because he’s not sure how to end the call.

He calls Keith’s phone as soon as Pidge hangs up, listening to hear if it rings within the apartment. The rooms are silent, and the phone rings. Rings. Rings five times before it cuts to the generic voicemail message, and he’d steeled himself in case Keith had actually answered and now he has to reset what he was going to say, mind racing before the final beep -

“Keith - it’s Lance, I… I just wanted to say I love you, and I’ll be here when you come home. You, you can always come home, okay? Always...love you…”

He hangs up before his voice can crack, lowers the phone to stare at the screen until it goes dark. Feebs is still kneading at his stomach, purring as if her life depended on it. He pets her, tries to focus on the softness of her fur, the warmth of her on his lap, but his mind is racing and his pulse is pounding and his eyes are prickling with tears because he’s so worried. He’s so worried. He doesn’t know how this happened and he doesn’t know how to stop it from happening again and he’s started to feel them creep up on him, within the depths of the helplessness, his insecurities stirring and raising their ugly heads and whispering that if he’d only been better - at what?  _ just better _ \- this wouldn’t have happened. If he’d been a better boyfriend, if he’d been more attentive, if he’d - if he’d - 

He forces himself to put the phone on the coffee table, forces himself to gently but firmly pry Feebs from his lap, place her just as gently on the couch cushion as he rises to his feet. He isn’t going to cave under self-doubt, not this time. He isn’t going to allow it to taint his mind right now. He hasn’t been going to a therapist for months to get nothing out of it, he isn’t going to let all his hard work go down the drain now, not at the worst moment possible.

When he’d told his therapist that he felt like he wasn’t doing enough, that nothing he did ever felt good enough, that he was a bad friend, a bad boyfriend, that he needed to do more,  _ try harder _ , she’d looked him in the eye and asked him whether he thought his friends, his boyfriend, whether those he thought he was failing thought the same as him. And she asked him to think of everything he did for someone else, daily. And she asked him to think of how many times they thanked him, or did something for him for no reason except that they could. And they’d talked and he’d cried and they’d talked  _ more _ . And it’s been a slow few months rearranging his way of thinking but he’s gotten better at recognizing that he really is doing good, and he really is trying enough, and that people really do appreciate him. 

And he knows that as much as this moment he is in feels like a personal failure, as much as he feels that if he had just  _ done something _ , some  _ magical _ something, it could’ve been prevented - the truth was that it was no one’s fault. It was no one’s failure. Not his, and certainly not Keith’s, and no one could have predicted that things would’ve gone this way.

His insecurities refuse to go away, stirring the pot of self-doubt that’s simmering within that pool of helplessness, but he’s able to quiet them, able to push them out of focus.

But he’s still wired, still shaking, still wiping the tears from his eyes, still unable to keep from worrying, worrying, worrying about Keith - Keith - Keith - and he has to move, has to let the energy out somehow.

So he’s tidying the living room, even though there’s nothing much to tidy. And he’s going to their bedroom to grab Keith’s blankets, the weighted ones and the fluffy fleece ones that Keith likes the texture of, to pile on the couch. His mind is still racing as he works - there’s a moment when he wonders if he should call the police. That’s what he did last time, panicked and unsure of what to do. He should’ve asked his therapist, he thinks, what to do in a situation like this - he hadn’t thought that it would come again but he should’ve. 

Should he call the police? He’s wavering on that thought - he doesn’t think Keith is a danger to himself, not really, and the articles he’s read about police interactions with the mentally ill don’t make him feel optimistic. He can’t imagine that Keith would react well to being cornered by officers, even if they were trying to help him. 

He decides that if Keith isn’t back by morning that he would call. Keith always comes back, after all. He has to come back.

So he’s got the blankets on the couch, a bewildered Feebs stepping over the bulky mess slowly, meowing her confusion. He gives her a pet, settles on the couch and tries to think of what else to do.

Keith doesn’t have his keys, he remembers, as his eyes land on the front door. He gets up, goes to unlock it. Then he heads to the back door and unlocks that too, just in case.

Just this one night, he can risk the burglars.

Then he goes back to the couch, puts his phone on the armrest, pulls one of the fleece blankets over himself, and decides to wait.

  
  


Eventually he passes out, Feebs tucked under his chin.

  
  
  


When he wakes up the sky outside the window is a few shades softer than midnight black, and Keith is standing in the living room across the coffee table from him.

For a second Lance thinks he’s dreaming, because Keith looks so far from himself that it’s almost surreal. Hair disheveled, jacket zipped up to his chin, pale and shaking, his dark eyes red-rimmed and haunted, Lance can barely recognize him.

“Hey,” Lance says finally, once he realizes that he’s been staring at Keith for too long, once he realizes that Keith has been staring at him for probably a bit longer.

“I’m sorry.” Keith says in reply, voice low, wavering, like he’s barely holding something back. He’s uneasy on his feet, swaying just the tiniest of bits. Lance shifts to sit up on the couch and Keith flinches back, arms coming up to cross over his chest.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Lance says. He wants to get up and run to him and pull him close and wrap him up and never let go but Keith still has that look in his eyes, wary and pained, like an animal that’s been hit too many times to not expect the hurt to come again, and he knows he isn’t  _ back _ yet, not quite, so he forces himself to sit there. It hurts but he sits there.

“I...I didn’t know where to go,” Keith says. He sounds listless, his voice untethered, lost somewhere. “I didn’t know where to go and….and I ended up at the old apartment…”

“We only moved a couple months ago,” Lance replies, trying to sound soothing. It might be working, because Keith nods in agreement. 

“I’m sorry.” He says again, the wavering in his voice tipping dangerously towards a sob, “I didn’t mean for it to be like this.” 

“Don’t apologize,” Lance isn’t trying to sound harsh but it comes out that way in his sleep-raspy voice, and Keith flinches again, and Lance hates it and he tries to fix it, “I mean, you don’t have to apologize. There’s nothing to apologize for, okay?”

Keith bites his lip, but he nods, and Lance takes it as a good sign. It has to be a good sign, if Keith is still there, if he isn’t running anymore. 

“You cold?” Lance asks. Keith’s still shivering, arms wrapped tight around himself. Lance motions to the pile of blankets on the other end of the couch. “Come on, there’s… your blankets are there, if you want to warm up.”

It’s an offer Keith accepts, shuffling over to couch. The closer he gets the more exhausted he looks to Lance, more drained, his movements slow and stiff. He digs through the pile mechanically, pulling enough blankets free to finally shove himself onto the couch under them and Lance watches as Keith piles them up, up until they cover even the top of his head, until he’s hidden beneath the multicolored mound. 

He came back. It hurts Lance to see Keith like this, it hurts, but the tension in his chest ease the tiniest of bits because Keith is back. Keith came home. And Keith coming home is all that matters, because as long as they’re together they can work through this. Through anything. As long as they have each other, Lance thinks, they can make it. Day by day, step by step, they’ll figure it out. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> On the one hand I hate posting at midnight because it's midnight, no one is awake to see this come up in the recent lists, so what's the point even
> 
> On the other hand, I'm terrified of dying in my sleep and therefore forced to post this in the event that I DO die in my sleep, so that the work I put into it doesn't sit around undiscovered and eventually becomes deleted or destroyed through the passage of time.


End file.
